AmateurRadio.com

Trevor Holyoak, KD7GHI, grew up in a house full of homemade gadgets that his dad made including clocks, a TV, and radios. He learned basic electronics from him, and practiced on a 150-in-one kit from Radio Shack.

“I watched him do CW and string wire antennas across the yard, and so I was aware of ham radio at a young age,” he said. “He built our first home computer, a Sinclair ZX81, from a kit and that got me started down a path that I’m still on today.”

Holyoak is a professional computer programmer and began creating Android apps on the side a few years ago.

“I got the idea to create the Ham Radio Podcasts app because I had already built a couple of other podcast apps for specific interests, and I discovered that there are a bunch of great amateur radio podcasts out there,” said Holyoak. “I put them all together in an app that makes it easy to listen to them. You can stream the episodes as you listen, or you can download them and listen to them later when you don’t have a data connection.”

A few of the twenty featured podcasts include 100 Watts and a Wire, ARRL’s The Doctor is In, Everything Ham Radio, Ham Nation, Ham Radio 2.0, Ham Radio 360, Ham Talk Live, and HamRadioNow.

Like many hams, Holyoak’s involvement in ham radio throughout his life has waxed and waned. “After a few years I became inactive, although I still kept a radio on hand in case of emergency,” he said.

It wasn’t until last year, when he was asked him to spearhead an emergency communications effort in his local area that he finally became active again. He is now very active and is currently studying for the General test. He purchased an all-band, all-mode base station and was recently elected as an officer for his local club.

“Since I’m currently a Technician, I mostly have been active on 2m and 70cm FM, although I’ve also been dabbling in SSB on 6m and trying to figure out how to reach someone on 10m with a end-fed long wire antenna,” he said. “I’m very interested in getting into digital modes on HF once I get my General license.”

Listening to the popular ham radio podcasts has been an easy way for him to get back up to speed quickly and learn about new aspects of the hobby.

“Personally, I most enjoy the podcasts that are in a particular technical subject that I’d like to learn more about,” he said. “Some of my favorites are ARRL’s The Doctor is In, Everything Ham Radio, and Ham Radio 360.”

The app is available free (ad-supported) on Google Play:
Ham Radio Podcasts

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